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Apple Music With Spatial Audio Now Available in Rivian Vehicles
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To be fair, regardless of my rants above, Carplay does not support Spatial Audio (and neither does Airplay by the way). So if that is important to you, it does require native support for Apple Music. This is one of the areas where Apple are doing really poorly, given how much ressources they are throwing at content production.
So here is my question. I have to pay them 14.99 to make work what I already paid Apple for. And then the other hi res audio I pay for doesn’t even work. How is this a good deal when they could just add CarPlay and I get everything else for free?
You'd be shocked about how many new cars don't have these. Even my 2023 VW doesn't have one. Only USB-C, thank goodness.
CarPlay is nice but I would not hesitate buying a Tesla with their own system, especially when everything is integrated.
An LTE plan for your car is useful in other ways. I can check on my phone to make sure my windows are rolled up, or can see exactly where I parked the thing on a map (when Siri forgets to drop a pin for me).
But it's unnecessary because my phone already has a data connection. They're not selling it as a data connection cost.
It is when all phones can do that, and you already pay for it with your plan. The only reason I pay the $99/yr Tesla Connection is so that I can check the cameras remotely... but $150 is excessive. I really would like to know a number of things, like bandwidth, other benefits, etc.
Who uses audio jacks these days? Genuinely curiousPaying a monthly subscription to use a music streaming service that also costs subscription money is disgusting, the rivian also had no audio jack
Listen, CarPlay, when you come from the crappy infotainment like your grandma's ford, is a godsend. But it's not the end to end best system out there.
If you haven't seen the level of integration closed infotainment systems like Rivian's (I havent seen or used Rivian's, so im speaking in general), or Tesla's, you really wont understand how not needed CarPlay is. Not having it doesn't diminishes the capacity of the vehicle.
I can connect to all my music accounts, podcasts, etc. and If I wanted more like lets say using Waze, I have it on my phone, its a few taps away. I used to have CarPlay on my ICE car, and after moving to the Tesla, I just don't miss it. I have surround and lossless... what else could I want?
Would it be good to have? Sure why not, but is it needed? Nah. More importantly would I bank my decision of my next generation vehicle based on the infotainment? Also, No.
Lucids statement on not liking the experience of going back and forth between UI's would make sense if they didn't know about the full CarPlay implementation where you don't need to swap between UI's.
Apple Music is a welcomed addition though so people dont have to use Bluetooth Music.
Apple Music is a welcomed addition though so people dont have to use Bluetooth Music.
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In other words, mostly stuff you would already have with CarPlay. Yeesh.
I hope I am wrong but I am convinced next-gen CarPlay is vaporware and going the way of AirPower.
Except that I already have an unlimited data connection with a hotspot... in my iPhone. My question is, why don't car manufacturers reverse their paradigm, and just piggyback off of existing connections for all of the embedded head units data requirements?* When I'm out and about, my iPhone is with me. When I'm at home, my WiFi is available. I always have some form of data connectivity available, already... there's absolutely no value (to me) to putting yet another data connection in my car.**
* Don't bother answering... it's rhetorical. We all know perfectly well that the only reason they don't support my suggested use case is that they wouldn't be able to charge for a data connection.
** Until real self-driving comes on the scene, allowing me to tell my car to come pick me up. That's the only legitimate use case... and it's still years off.
I'll go one further - CarPlay isn't even good. I end up having to use my phone half the time to send a quick message or initiate a call because CarPlay just couldn't manage.
I know you said you don't want to hear it, but Rivians can use your mobile hotspot if you don't want to pay for their LTE service. Not even difficult to learn this - it was the first result on Google.
How does it not “manage”. I use it daily to easily send and receive text messages, makes calls etc. maybe it’s user errors?
Siri doesn't understand, or calls the wrong number for someone (work instead of mobile), horrifyingly misunderstands what I need my text to say, initiates navigation to the wrong location of whatever chain, etc etc. The perils of using voice as the primary input method.
From what I can tell, it’s none these days. Between the manufacturers that see their vehicle control systems as an interface to sell you additional features and subscription services and then everyone else using onboard LTE connections to collect and transmit ECU data that gets sold to data brokers there is nowhere to hide. On my vehicle, the LTE antenna is powered via the same fuse that the hands free microphone is powered from…pull the fuse and you lose your mic. Some are okay with it and others aren’t. I know a few folks have gone so far as to wire in a resistor to the LTE antenna circuit that makes the system think they are constantly away from signal but still maintains the microphone function. A lot of manufacturers do let you “opt out” of data sharing if you send a request…it’s the minimum you could do to try and maintain some privacy.
Wouldn't spatial audio in a car be the ultimate distraction? Like looking around trying to figure out where the accident was at the end of Detroit Rock City and get into an accident yourself? I wonder if you can have realtime spatial audio reproduction of the sounds outside the car. Now that would be neat.